Author's Notes: Drama! Drama! Drama! (At least a little bit) And lots of Daniel affirmation.
Daniel stood in the temple storeroom, eyes closed, arms crossed tightly across his chest.
"What do you think, Daniel?" Dr. Harrison Bailey asked, a ridiculing tone to his voice.
Daniel sighed and shook his head. "I don't know." He answered, frustrated. "It doesn't work. It doesn't make sense. The grammar is wrong – the sentence structure – it's like we're missing something."
"Use your head, Daniel!" Bailey rounded on him, shouting. "What does it say?!"
Daniel's brow furrowed in concentration as he looked at the tablet again. "There's a reference to Tiamat, and there's something regarding –" he tried desperately to make sense of the seeming nonsense. "I don't know." He resigned, not understanding why he couldn't make sense of this – it was like a piece of something really was missing.
"It's the creation story." Bailey turned back to the other artifacts haughtily. "Can you not even recognize that?" He leaned casually against the wall. "You've always thought you were something special, haven't you?" he asked rhetorically as Daniel rubbed his forehead in unease. "But it would seem you're not so special after all, wouldn't it? Nothing but a second-rate archaeologist and a damn poor linguist. Needed your girlfriend to come along and help you open this, didn't you?" Bailey came forward until he was uncomfortably close to the younger man and lowered his voice to a cross between a whisper and a growl. "Why don't you crawl back under the rock you were hidden under for so long? Why bother coming back? Thought you'd impress us all, did you? Do you see anyone here who's impressed?"
Daniel clenched his jaw and looked straight into Bailey's eyes determinedly. "If we could work together on this–" He began.
Bailey took a step back, unused to the boldness with which Daniel spoke. "Not worth the effort." He recovered. Picking up his tools and a few of the tablets, he walked across the way to the tunnel entrance before stopping. He spoke over his shoulder. "Go back where you came from, Daniel. Go back with your... friends..." the word was drenched in spite, "...to whatever godforsaken work it is that you do now. You're mediocrity isn't needed here."
Daniel's shoulders slumped and he kicked a foot lamely in the dirt, unsure of what to do next. It was at that moment that Sam entered the room.
"Daniel?" she queried.
He looked at her a little hopefully. "You find anything?"
She shook her head and frowned. "No."
Daniel attempted to busy himself by playing around with the other artifacts in the room that the others had begun cataloguing, but in truth, he didn't really have a purpose other than to avoid the confrontation that he knew was coming. "Did you need something?" he couldn't look at her.
"No." Sam answered to his back. "Look, Daniel –" she paused, unsure of how to begin. "I guess I was wondering why you let Bailey talk to you like that."
"You, uh... you heard that, huh?" Daniel continued to rearrange.
"I was in the tunnel." Sam explained.
Daniel sighed and finally faced his friend. "You're going to start in on this too, now?" he asked, making reference to the conversations that he'd had with Jack.
Sam was worried, and it was all over her face. "Daniel, I don't think I need to tell you how valuable you are." She walked up to the archaeologist, placing a hand on his arm and giving it a squeeze. "I don't do what you do, Daniel, but I know that you are an integral part of SG1." At this, Daniel closed his eyes and shook his head slightly, and Sam recognized that her words were uncomfortable for him to hear. "I know you think you haven't done enough..." she continued, "...that it tears you apart because you think you haven't made a difference... I just – I wish you could see what I see. You're brilliant, Daniel. I don't have to be an archaeologist to see that. You're caring and passionate – you're an incredible diplomat..." Sam smiled, "You're even a damn good shot..." and then frowned when Daniel looked back to her, eyes filled with something like worry and sadness. "I know that's something that you've become that isn't necessarily something you ever wanted for yourself," she amended, "but the proficiency that you show for anything you do – Daniel, it's incredible." She paused again, looking for a way to drive her point home. "I guess I just wanted to tell you not to let Dr. Bailey or anyone else tell you that you don't do what you do well. You have been hidden under a rock for a long time, Daniel, literally" Sam couldn't help but smile at the irony of Bailey's words, "but it's only because your work is so important to the SGC that we couldn't let you go." She gave Daniel's arm another squeeze. "I'll let you know if we do come up with something." Sam promised before she left back through the tunnel.
Daniel leaned back against the nearest wall and tilted his head back, resting it against the cold stone.